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"Threats" Climbs Google's Hot Topics

Google Trends ever-changing list of "hot topics" that people are searching for online has been a particularly fascinating, if not altogether scientific, peek into what's on Americans minds.

Health care topics have been strong contenders all week; as we noted on Tuesday, in the hours immediately after President Obama signed the health care bill in the White House, Google searches for "What's in the health care bill?" shot up. For savvy politicians, that's search data you can use. Perhaps not coincidentally, shortly thereafter, White House new media director Macon Phillips put up a blog post titled, precisely, "What's in the Health Care Bill?" Intentional or not, it was a smart move from a search engine optimization perspective. That White House take on the bill's contents has established itself as the second highest search result for the phrase on Google.

A new day, and a new read on the American population. With incidents of violence and cases of violent rhetoric directed at members of Congress leading the news and swamping the web, people seem to be curious about the rising political temperatures across the country. The simple phrase "threats" was the number eight "Hot Topic" as of about an hour and a half ago. As of now, "threats" has climbed up to two spots to the number six slot on Google Trends.

UPDATE: In the time it took to write this post, "threats" climbed two spots to the number four space on Google Trends.